


With Friends Like These...

by Dabberdees



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Drabbles, Fluffy, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, My dumping ground for things that are too short to post, character death but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-02-08 13:11:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18623953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dabberdees/pseuds/Dabberdees
Summary: This was a one-shot but I've decided to turn it into a series of very loosely connected one-shots that follow the Fam and the Doc around. Angst, Fluffy, Hurt/Comfort.If you want a certain prompt? Shoot me a message on here or my tumblr.





	1. ...who needs enemies?

**Author's Note:**

> A cruel game forces the Doctor to make the worst decision she ever could.
> 
> To pick between her friends.

The Doctor awakens with an ache in her head that makes her feel woozy. She brings a hand upwards and rubs at her eyes, willing the dizziness to go.

“You’ve woken up then.” said a voice from everywhere, and nowhere at the same time. “It’s about time you did, because you Doctor, you have a game to play and a choice to make.”

The Doctor perks up at that, head snapping around the room and landing on her friends. Each one locked behind their own personal prison with a shadowy figure stood threateningly behind them.

She leaps to her feet and rushes forward, hands on the glass and trying to find anything that looks like it would open them.

“It’s fruitless Doctor.” the voice points out. “There’s no way for you to get to them, we know your tricks... and we’ve taken your screwdriver.” She sends a hand to where she knows she keeps it and to her horror, it is gone.

“What do you want with them?” The Doctor asked in a serious tone while looking around the room. “They’ve done nothing.”

The voice lets out an indifferent chuckle. “Ha, nothing, I suppose they’ve done nothing… accept travel with _you_.” There’s a beat on the other end. “The Destroyer of Worlds, the Oncoming Storm, the Great Exterminator, or simply put… War. And that’s just to name a few. If I were to name them all, we’d be here for a long time.”

Her face hardens, and she sees the flash of shock on her new friend’s faces. Yaz’ apprehensive look, Ryan’s confusion… and Graham’s narrowed eyes. She never wanted them to know about that, wanted to let them believe the lie she built around herself this time.

“Let them go.” warned the Doctor. “Take whatever you need from me but let them go.”

There’s that laugh again. “Do you not get it, Doctor? Harming you would serve no purpose, killing you, no purpose. You’ll come back again, a new face, and you’ll repeat the cycle.” She looks around the room again, trying to pinpoint where the voice could possibly be coming from. “Do you want to know your weakness?”

Whoever is speaking, hard to tell who they could be, their voice changing between sentences she thinks quickly as it pauses again. Almost like they want her to confirm what they already know.

She doesn’t answer.

There’s a sigh over the microphone. “Your weakness is them, they’ve always been your weakness, haven’t they? How many have you got killed over the years, Doctor? Or have you lost count?” There’s that pause again. “Do these new ones know they’re part of a list? One that contains the likes of Bill or Clara, perhaps? They were the latest to die, weren’t they?”

She turns her head away because she can’t bear to look into the faces of her new friends. “They’ve done nothing,” she repeated again. “Let them go, please .”

“Begging, Doctor, really? My, how far you’ve fallen… no, I don’t think I will let them go, they’re a major part of my plan and game after all.”

“What plan?”

“I want you to pick one.” She frowns and turns back to her friends. “Oh the other two will be fine, I’m not completely a monster… not like you.” There’s a sudden horror that flashes through her. “I want you to pick one to die.”

“No, I’ll have no part of your sick little game!” she yelled to the room. “They’ve done nothing !”

The voice sighs again. “That’s the other condition, you don’t pick, they all die.” Whoever it is, leaves the air empty again, the dramatic pauses causing anxiety to build within her. “I’ll give you… five minutes to think it over. If you haven’t decided by then, I will kill them all.”

Her hearts are thumping in her chest, and she turns her panicked eyes to her friends. How could they ask her to pick one to die? She can’t do it… but if she doesn’t, they all will. Flicking her eyes across them all again and she sees the fear on all of their faces. Ryan and Yaz’ are similar, but as she turns to Graham, she sees the same look but not directed at her but at Ryan… and at Yaz instead.

She realises she can’t hear them, whatever Ryan and Yaz are shouting at her falls on deaf ears. Eventually, Graham takes his eyes from Ryan and looks at her, he’s pulling against the figure holding him in place, and she spots him mouthing something.

“ _Pick me Doc, don’t you dare think otherwise, pick me!_ ”

They stare at one another. He’s made her decision for her, and it’s the logical choice. He knows it, and she, unfortunately, knows it as well. Graham has had a good portion of his life after all, unlike the other two. That doesn’t make it easier.

In the corner of her eyes, she sees that Ryan and Yaz have figured out what they’ve both decided and they turn their fearful eyes onto Graham, yelling and shouting at him. He chooses not to look at them, his eyes only locked on her, pleading with her to pick him.

“Have you picked Doctor?” asked the voice. “If you haven’t, they all die.”

The Doctor stares back at Graham, and he gives her a tight, knowing look. “I have.”

“Who is it then, who are you killing this time? Which death will be on your hands today?”

She doesn’t dare speak, she knows she couldn’t if she tried. The only thing she does is raise her arm and eyes to her chosen target. “Very well, the old man. It’s the logical choice really, the other two are younger, more useful to you. He’s had his life after all, hasn’t he?”

She ignores the voice, whoever it is doesn’t deserve her focus right now. Her friend, Graham, who’s about to die, he does. And she’s powerless to stop it from happening, she can only witness it.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do though, I’ll let you cradle him as he dies.” said the voice with complete indifference.

The Doctor widens her eyes, and she screams when the shadowy figure behind Graham rears back and stabs it’s darkened blade through his back before dissipating in smoke. The glass prison surrounding Graham falls away, leaving him to slump against the floor, his blood pooling around him as he gasps for needed air.

She sees the creatures holding Ryan and Yaz disappear as well, but their prisons stay up, blocking them from running to Graham.

“Graham!” yelled the Doctor running and sliding to her knees, the impact of the floor sending shockwaves through her body. “I got you.” She holds onto his slumped form and gently rolls him onto his back. “I… got you.”

Graham stares back up at her, blood coating his mouth as he coughs. “It was… the only choice Doc.” he breathed out. “I don’t blame… you.”

The Doctor takes in a shaky breath of her own, and she feels the tears escape her eyes. She has nothing to say to him, nothing to help or to offer to his dying body. She can only hold onto his hand, his grip and hers all the conversation they need together.

But that soon falters, and she stares into his eyes and watches as the light leaves them with his head lolling to one side. Another one dead, another one on the list.

The Doctor buries her head against him, and behind her, she finally hears the swish of the glass that holds her two remaining friends getting lowered.

“You can’t protect them, Doctor, you never can.” baited the voice. “How many have you lost?”

She doesn’t answer, she has nothing to say to them.

“It’s for the best that this is simply… a punishment for you, I suppose, no ones really dead.” That gets her attention, and she snaps her head upwards. “This never happened, it was… all a figment, you see, we tracked you on a planet. Figured out who and what you are and implanted this little plan within the food you ate, simple and unique and based entirely around your own thoughts Doctor. You friends were merely the passengers to your inner pain and your inner shame.” revealed the voice. “You’ll see soon enough.”

The Doctor, Ryan and Yaz all look around, and they flinch back when the very walls around them dissipate like the previous shadowy figures, leaving them all within the TARDIS console room to realise that this was all a pure evil and nasty trick.

They all leap back in shock when Graham jumps awake his hands pulling at his thankfully now blood-free shirt in terror. He snaps his eyes to his chest, eager to confirm that what he felt wasn’t true. “What the hell happened?” snapped Graham in fear and anxiety, his breathing overwhelming him. “I was stabbed… I felt it, the pain… what the bloody hell is going on?”

The Doctor and Ryan are there at his side in an instant, but he flinches back from them, too scared to really recognise them. “Gramps… it’s us, we’re here… It was... I don’t know, a sick trick?” stuttered Ryan, eyes only staying on the panic-filled ones of his grandad.

Graham shakes his head. “No, that was personal, not just a trick… a lesson of some kind.”

Yaz turns to look at the Doctor, and she sees the anger, the darkness that was carefully hidden within her shine bright on her face. “Doctor?” The Doctor snaps her eyes to Yaz, causing the young woman to take a nervous step back. “Why would they do that, play this sick joke?”

“No, what we should be asking is what has the Doctor done to deserve it. Cause Graham is right, this was personal,” answered Ryan, who has finally taken his eyes from Graham’s. “Whoever that was asked you which one would be killed this time, how many have you killed before Doctor? That doesn’t seem like an off-hand comment, and we all saw the look on your face when they said it.”

“Ryan, leave it..” started Yaz.

“No, Yaz, I won’t leave it!” interrupted Ryan. “Cause whatever she did nearly cause my…”

“Ryan, drop it!” snapped Graham in a tone of voice that leaves no room for argument. “Nothing happened to me.” he lied easily and through the lingering pain in his chest. He moves backwards and towards the console to lean and sit against without a word, one hand still holding on to the spot where the blade exited him. “Just drop it, please.”

“You’ll have to answer that sometime, Doctor,” said Ryan before turning on his heel and leaving the room, his entire body tensed with emotion. There’s a crash in a distant corridor, one distinctively the sound of something being kicked.

There’s a hand on the Doctor’s arm that causes her to jump and stare at the owner. It takes her a second to see who it is. “Yaz…”

“What the voice said, was it true?” Yaz inquired in a low voice. “Or was it just a lie, a horrible trick on us?”

The Doctor doesn’t know what to say, and if she doesn’t say anything, her silence confirms it, if she tries to cover, it’ll be a lie. “I’m old Yaz and… I’ve done things and lost people.”

The young woman simply nods and turns her eyes upon Graham, who waves her concern away. The Doctor watches Yaz as she follows after Ryan, probably for the best. If she had to look at herself, she too would run away.

“Doc.”

The Doctor ignores his call for a moment, her eyes only staring after Yaz before looking to Graham. She takes another moment before deciding to join him on the floor by the console. “Graham.”

“I don’t resent your decision, you know that?” divulged Graham. He reaches over to her and takes her hand, mirroring the move from earlier. “It was the logical choice.”

“That’s not the point Graham, my past actions lead you three into that situation,” she replied in a shaky voice. “I won’t let it happen again.”

“What are you gonna do about it?”

The Doctor faces Graham again with narrowed eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Well something out there has it in for you, don’t they? So what are you gonna do about it?”

She has to be honest with him and hopes that he’ll understand. “I should find who did it and make sure they never do it again.”

Graham only gives her a nod and hums. “What about if you don’t do that? Take revenge I mean, you once told me not to, and I’d hate for you to do it on my behalf.”

“They used you to get to me, they killed you, Graham.”

“They didn’t though and… first time for everything I ‘spose.” joked Graham but the humour is hardly there. “Look Doc, don’t think I ain’t at least a little concerned about what that was all about… what they said in there cause I am… and Ryan is right, we need to have this chat at some point but it happened, and we gotta move on, alright?”

She relents and sighs, sagging back against the console. “You’re a wise man Graham.”

“Comes with the job Doc.” smiled Graham before turning to look at the Doctor. “Leave Ryan to me, and Yaz, well, she’ll come round eventually. Probably just a shock and stress for them both but they have each other to confide in for the time being.”

“What about you, Graham?” Graham shrugs at her. “Don’t give me that, you were…” She doesn’t want to say killed.

“It’s not important what didn’t happen Doc, it really ain’t. We just gotta move on, cause I don’t wanna think about it,” answered Graham. “Look, let’s just get a cuppa, a cuppa always helps don’t it?” said Graham while standing up and reaching a hand down to her.

The Doctor accepts his hand and allows him to help her up. “We will talk about this Graham… but for the time being, we’ll just get a cuppa.”

Graham gives her the briefest of nods before heading for the kitchen. They both leave the console room empty and quiet in their wake. The only thing left behind is a bright spark that soon fades away, like dust in the wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Name a reference to the Dark Brotherhood quest "With Friends like these"


	2. A game of loss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Graham and the Doctor come to blows when he thinks she's wrong to send them away while she risks her life.

“I told you not to come after me,” snapped the Doctor. “I told all of you, said it would be dangerous, but you came back anyway.”

“And with damn good reason,” retorted Graham while handing Ryan’s weight over to Yaz to support, making sure she has it and then storming over to the Doctor, a fit of rare anger on his face. “But I bloody well don’t care Doc, if we didn’t come along, then you would be dead and gone.” He argued back, gesturing at her. “We were worried, you had no right to order us around while you throw your life away trying to fix something that couldn’t be fixed.”

The Doctor snaps her head to him, face dark. “That’s the thing, Graham, I have the chance to come back, you Humans, you don’t,” She paces around the console, hitting levers and dials as she goes. “You lot, you die so easily, one misstep and a fall could kill you.” She stares back at all of them, her eyes lingering on Ryan’s limp ankle. Thankfully not broken, just sprained. “You’re so fragile.”

Graham raises his head, eyes narrowed and annoyed. “We ain’t fragile, Doc, cause yeah we might get hurt or whatever but don’t think for a damn second that we’re fragile, we’re stronger than you think we are.”

“You could’ve died!” The Doctor throws back at Graham with worry lacing her voice. “I could have lost all of you.” She added, voice lowering. “I can’t lose again, can’t lose people I care about again.”

Yaz lowers Ryan to the floor, eyes flicking back to the Doctor and Graham, and watching for the time being.

“We’re a Fam though, ain’t we?” Graham replied to her, arms crossed against his chest. “How can you expect us to let you go out and sacrifice yourself? Make us sit on our hands.” 

“Ryan wouldn’t have gotten hurt if you followed my orders,” The Doctor shoots back at him. “You would’ve been safer in the TARDIS if you-”

“Just listened, I got that the first time you said it,” Graham interjects, frustrated. “You’re our mate, Doc, but you ain’t our parent, and you can’t treat us like misbehaving children needing to be sent to our rooms when you’re out there, in danger and risking everything on a whim.”

“To me, Graham, you are children.” The Doctor fires back while leaning heavily down on the console, eyes ancient. “You lot live rapid lives with a need to achieve, but compared to me… you’re just fleeting and transient.”

Graham’s eyes turn cold, and he takes a step towards her. “And I’ve already watched one woman I care about die, I wasn’t about to let another possibly die alone. Not when the daft woman needed us, needed her Fam to help get her ass out of there when we realised that it was too late to fix what happened.”

The Doctor looks back up at Graham, reading his worries correctly for the first time since the facility went into meltdown but she persists, she has to make him understand regardless of what he thinks of her. “I’m sorry Graham, but I’ve lost so many, and I have a duty of care to all of you when you’re with me.” She stares into his very soul, ancient eyes staring into his blue. He turns his eyes away first. “And I failed again today, got Ryan hurt and put you all in danger.”

Graham looks back at Ryan. “Are you saying that I haven’t lost, Doc? That you have authority over me because you’ve lost more than I have?” 

“No, that’s not what I’m say-”

“Well it bloody sounded like it,” argued Graham, interrupting her as his frustration bleeds into anger. He turns away from her, hands clenching at his side. “I’ve lost a lot as well, Doc, I didn’t want to lose you as well today, didn’t want to add you to that list.”

The Doctor doesn’t respond, eyes locked onto the console. Graham breathes out, but the frustration is evident on his body and face. “Fair enough, then, Doc.” He turns away, heading back over to Ryan and helping him back off the floor. “I’m taking Ryan to the medical bay, gonna strap his ankle and find some pain relief.” He says more to Yaz, facing her and avoiding the Doctor.

Ryan gives Graham a side-eye, the pain in his ankle, forgotten and unimportant compared to the tight look on his granddad’s face. He flicks his eyes to the Doctor, finding her turned away now. “You coming as well, Yaz?”

Yaz looks back at Ryan and gives a slight shake of the head that Ryan picks up on, he returns the gesture and proceeds to allow Graham to help him from the console room. She watches them go, sighing and then training her eyes on the Doctor’s face, noting the change to her eyes. “How old are you exactly, Doctor? You said you were old before, back during-” Yaz trails off, none of them bring up the cruel trick played on them, and if they do, they never do it around Graham. He refuses to speak about what he felt, and she doesn’t blame him for it, she wouldn’t want to bring it up either.

The Doctor presses more of her weight against the console, body sagging into it. “I lost count.” She takes in a deep breath. “The last check was over two-thousand, or four-billion if you want to truly count it-”

“Four billion?” Yaz said, eyes wide and surprised.

The Doctor waves a hand through the air. “Semantics, really.” She leans away from the console. “But I’m very old, Yaz.”

“And you’ve lost a lot.”

The Doctor shrugs, eventually turning to look at Yaz, eyes heavy. “I never meant to insinuate that my loss was greater than Graham’s, I just needed him to understand why I did what I did.”

“I think you need to tell him that, but maybe when he’s cooled off,” Yaz replied, breaking the tension marginally. “He was worried about Ryan… and you.” Yaz takes a step towards the Doctor. “We all were, and he’s right. We’re in this together, Doctor, you can’t just order us away and expect us to let you die without trying to save you.”

The Doctor stares into the console and leaves a pause in the air. “He was wrong about one thing, Yaz.”

“What?” Yaz furrows her brows at the Doctor. “What was he wrong about?”

The Doctor sighs. “About how strong I think you are.” She watches as Yaz inclines her head to the side. “You’re stronger than I am, humans always have been. You lot wear your hearts on your sleeves, and the majority of you aren’t bad, there are a few bad ones, but every species has them, mine especially.”

“But you’re strong Doctor, you save so many people.”

The Doctor smiles sadly, eyes looking downcast. “Those two points don’t always go hand in hand Yaz, I help out where and when I can because it’s the right thing to do, but I’m not always strong.” She looks up again. “That voice, all those weeks ago… I figured it out, the blend between them confusing on purpose, but I gave what they said some thought.”

“What did you find?”

“My inner pain and my inner shame, it took a while but the trick, it stemmed from me… from my inner voices. Gone from the world but still within me, guiding and speaking in ways that only I hear.”

Yaz takes another step forward, hand reaching out to the Doctor. “What do you mean?”

The Doctor raises her gaze again. “I’ve lived so many lives, been so many people. In all respects, my previous regeneration and who I am now, we shouldn’t have existed but my people gifted… or cursed us with another cycle.”

“You mentioned you were a white-haired Scotsman before, back on the train. I take that was true then?”

A smile ghosts the Doctor’s face. “The Eyebrows.” The Doctor turns and looks into the heart of the TARDIS. “He was so sure he wasn’t going to regenerate, but he did, and he gave me a set of instructions that I tried to follow this time around. I even warned you lot, explained that you wouldn’t come back the same. More than I ever did before, thought that it would be enough.”

“You did Doctor, and we knew the dangers, we’ve experienced them, but you want to know what, Doctor?” Yaz waits and watches as the Doctor turns back to her, her face entirely focused on what she has to say. No pressure then, Yaz thinks quickly. “It makes it. Cause life back on Earth is just as dangerous, for me, for Ryan, and for Graham who’s in remission. But with you, when you show us the universe, we see more than we ever could back on Earth, dangers or not I wouldn’t change that for anything.”

“I would.” The Doctor responded, exhausted. “But the universe will always be dangerous, she’ll always have people who need help, who need someone to stand up for what’s right.” The Doctor looks towards the way that Graham and Ryan went. “I should speak to Graham, explain what I said and that I didn’t mean to compare what we lost.”

“You should but another time, let him fuss over Ryan and annoy him like a mother hen… but he’s reasonable, and he’ll regret what he said to you as well.” Yaz reaches forward and locks her hand into the Doctor’s. “Ryan will probably give him a talking to.”

The Doctor nods, breathing out through her nose in one breath. “Graham once said that a cuppa makes everything better, could break the ice with him if I bought one along.”

“And a pack of biscuits.” Yaz smiles back at the Doctor. “You could get him a never-ending Thermos for tea, that’ll make him happy.”

The Doctor looks up at Yaz and smiles, genuinely. “Not sure about never-ending, but I could make it bigger on the inside for him.” The Doctor suggested, amusement touching her face again. “We probably should head off from here.”

“Back to Sheffield?”

The Doctor shakes her head. “How does a beach sound? Graham always complains that I take us to cold places more-so than warm, could buy him with that and tea.”

Yaz smirks. “As a police officer, I should reprimand you for the use of bribing, but I’ll let you off right now because a beach does sound nice,” Yaz said, with mirth. “Just no death-eyed turtle army, or giant spiders.”

The Doctor flashes a smile back at her and turns to flick different switches, sending the TARDIS away and into relative safety for once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw a prompt on tumblr that I wanted to write about, so hopefully, this one-shot makes sense. :p


	3. Magic Trick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For joli <3
> 
> based on a twitter video

It was Yaz’s idea that they all go for a coffee, under the guise of them all bonding and winding down after their most recent trip.

And it’s true, but it’s not the entire truth. She wants to play a harmless prank on the Doctor, nothing terrible, just a little bit of fun after she saw a video posted on the internet. Ryan, she told him what she wanted to do, and he was on board straight away. Graham was slightly harder to persuade, but they needed him to film it so they could watch the Doctor’s reaction back whenever they wanted.

She left Graham to Ryan and eventually the older man agreed to it. Yaz isn’t sure how Ryan got him to agree, but he did, and she’s grateful for that.

Yaz turns her attention back to the Doctor after giving Ryan a sly nod. “I have something I want to show you, Doctor,” She smiles.

The Doctor looks at her, eyes shining with interest. “Show me?”

“Yep,” She smiles again. “It’s a little magic trick I’ve been working on.”

“Magic?” The Doctor repeats while Yaz nods. “I’m intrigued now.”

Yaz flicks her eyes to Ryan, spotting that he’s paying attention to them. She can’t see Graham, but she’s hoping that he’s at least listening to them. She focuses back onto the Doctor as she picks up the unused straw from the table. “All you have to do, Doctor, is watch the straw,”

The Doctor frowns at her and removes the overly sweet costa coffee from her mouth, hand holding it out to the side. “Why?”

Yaz smiles at her again. “Just watch it, Doctor, it’s part of the magic.” She flicks her eyes to Ryan, who’s sat behind the Doctor with a smirk on his face. He gives her a nod, and she watches as his eyes flick to a spot behind her.

“Get ready to film,” Ryan mouths over her head, and then his face frowns, and he rolls his eyes. He lifts his own phone up and from behind the head of the Doctor opens up the camera to open the video recorder. After a brief second, his mouth moves again. “Oh my days, finally.” Ryan flicks his eyes back to Yaz and nods again, his hand giving her a thumbs up.

Yaz turns back to the Doctor again and finds that she’s staring intently at the straw, completely missing their silent conversation.

“Yaz, I’m watching the straw, but nothing is happening-” The Doctor says. “-It’s not a very good trick.”

“That’s not the trick, Doctor,” Yaz says. “This is, now watch it-”

“I have been watching it.”

Yaz laughs. “Just watch it from now-” She says. The Doctor nods, and she starts to move the straw, rising it from the palm of her right hand and then to her left ear, making sure to keep it from the Doctor’s view. “Right, you watching?” The Doctor nods again. Her eyes follow it like a cat following a piece of string. “Three… two… one-” She slips the straw behind her ear. “And gone!”

The Doctor eyes widen as she feels the straw slipping from her ear, her eyes catch Ryan passing the straw past his head and then she spots him dropping into the Doctor’s coffee. The Doctor snaps her eyes to Yaz. “Where is it?”

Yaz grins and gestures with her head towards the Doctor’s cup. “Look.”

The Doctor follows her gaze and the instant she sees it in her cup, her eyes go even wider, almost to the size of saucers. “By Rassilon’s gauntlet!” She exclaims, eyes darting to Yaz again. “You really are magical, Yazmin Khan.”

Yaz can’t help the blush that instantly appears in her face, or the smug look on Ryan’s as he wiggles his eyebrows at her, mouthing ‘magical girl Yaz’ She shoots him a glare.

The Doctor, still looking amazed that the straw is in her cup, looks to a spot behind her. “Graham, Yaz is magical!” She yells for the entire coffee shop to hear, and the blush on the younger woman’s face turns beet red. “Do it again!” Beams the Doctor. “Please.”


End file.
